It has been a while...
How many blogs do I start out that way?!  A lot.  I'm sorry!

We've had a full two weeks of staff training.  A job that I love very much... a training that was not all I had hoped for... se la vie... or however that is spelled.

That's my excuse!

I wanted to break down our vacation day by day and tell you all that we did at some point, and I still will, but as for today, I only have 5 minutes.  I'll attempt to add some pictures as a preview:

First experience Mini Golfing

Out to Dinner with Long time friends

swimming in the pool at the condo...

At the duck pond near Uncle Dana's house.

Loving the palm trees!  These are our vacation symbol... if we see palm trees, then we know we're on vacation!!

vacation

You know you love someone and that your marriage will last when you can spend 18 hours in a car with them... and not argue or fight once!

If I didn't already know that Ryan and I will last forever, which I did, I do now!!

You might think we're crazy for taking our newly potty trained toddler in a car for this long (we think we're crazy too) but she did great!!!

We split the driving into two legs.  Massachusetts to Virginia one day (8 hours - however, with traffic, it ended up being 10 hours) and then Virgina to South Carolina (which was about 7.5 hours) the second day.  We decided this was a great decision!!  We stayed at a Holiday Inn Express in VA and found a great Bar and Grill type place for dinner.  Maddie did so well in the Hotel (her first Hotel experience!) 

Only two or three times did we need to pull to the side of a highway for her to use her "potty"... the rest of the time when she told us she needed to go, we could pull off the highway in time.  I was really glad we kept the back seat open for such instances!!

I think she actually did better than we did at not getting too restless in the car!  The tough thing is that she's very much like me and doesn't sleep well in the car... so the first day, she only slept for 30 minutes.  Then, the second day, she slept for an hour.  If you know a two year old that has not had a good nap, you know that their demeanor can be horrendous in such instances.  Considering she was cooped up in a car for 10 and 8 hours; one little break down was not bad at all!

We got here (to my Uncle Dana's house) and went to dinner with him.  Then we happened to see fire works right from his front yard.  Such a great start to our vacation!!

We went to the beach today and it was gorgeous!!  The water is so wonderful, not too hot and certainly not too cold!  Maddie had a great time but is still nervous about the waves!  We'll work on that!

Tomorrow we're going to the Myrtle Beach Pelican's game with Uncle Dana and then Wednesday, Ryan and he are golfing!

Will post pictures once i get home, we forgot the camera cord!